


kiss me like you did yesterday

by iwaoidk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Rare Pair, first fic in this tag is angst great job, fuck you serena, i dont know, late night drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwaoidk/pseuds/iwaoidk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyoutani used to be sturdy, used to be like the way cinder blocks shatter, used to surge like a gentle hurricane under the rib cage. Now he's just reminiscent of a photograph, an accumulation of inconsistencies and timelines that are fraying at the arrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss me like you did yesterday

There's one drop, two, three running across his cheeks and Kyoutani Kentarou knows that it isn't rain this time.

There's four corners of a picture frame, and one casket. Lots of people and he still feels alone. There's freckles in the stars and a tightening corset around his chest and Kyoutani can't quite breathe. 

His fingertips twitch, the lines in his palms deepening and then falling flat as his hands remember that they're alone, they're alone. The wind flits between the gaps of his thumbs, blowing cold air across his skin, like an apology. His tears are hot, searing across his gentle skin like tangled flames. Eyelashes thick and lips chapped, he isn't as bitter as much as he is sorry.

Kyoutani used to be sturdy, used to be like the way cinder blocks shatter, used to surge like a gentle hurricane under the rib cage. Now he's just reminiscent of a photograph, an accumulation of inconsistencies and timelines that are fraying at the arrows. He's freshly twenty-two now, or twenty-three, he's twenty  _something_ but he doesn't know fully the exact digits because all he knows is that it's their fault. It's the fault of the numbers, the fault  _in_ the numbers, the fault of  _him_ as a travesty and he's the reason that his tie feels like a noose and his suit is much too dark.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, feels fingertips through his coat, and he turns to look up at glasses that throw him back at himself.

"Stop it," Tsukishima says, lips pale and barely moving because Kyoutani knows Tsukishima, and he knows that his voice is low because if he's loud, you'd be able to tell that his chest is thick and his nose is stuffed and he's been crying.

"Stop what?"

"Stop  _this_." He gestures to Kyoutani as a whole, to the lip between his teeth and the stuttering breaths.

"I don't-"

" _Stop feeling like it's your fault_."

Kyoutani almost stops breathing at this, just freezes, fingers curling in until he has fists for hands and a cold chest. He laughs, sharp and bitter, the sound making both of them flinch.

"Well, it is, isn't it?"

Tsukishima is breathing quickly now, chin jutting up into the air, head shaking fast. "No. It's not."

"It is." Kyoutani lifted a hand, raised it to their surroundings and waved it at the flowers and tissue boxes and the lemon-smelling wood.  He dipped his head, speaking softly, "It's completely my fault. If it hadn't been for me, Yamaguchi-"

" _Yamaguchi would be nothing_."

He was cut off by thumbs squeezing the crooks of his elbows, his body rattling as Tsukishima shook him back and forth. His eyes reflected the moon, wide and slowly burning, lips parting as his voice rose.

"Yamaguchi would be nothing," he said again, voice softer. "Yamaguchi would be sitting at home, absorbing his own lack of self-worth. Yamaguchi would be trying to figure out the best way he could just disappear and there'd be no one to anchor him to the world. Yamaguchi wouldn't even fucking  _be_ Yamaguchi without you. And if you're going to blame yourself, you're derailing everything,  _everything_ that this boy has ever felt about you."

Kyoutani's eyes slid to the side despite how close they were, arms hanging limply in Tsukishima's grip.

"You can stand here and tell yourself that yeah, maybe if you hadn't been born, Yama would be alive. But ask yourself if he'd be happy."

Tsukishima's long fingers slowly let go of Kyoutani, warm skin subtracting away and eyes closing into a whisper, "He wouldn't want you to hurt."

He turned on his heel, dress shoe scuffing as he started his way towards the parking lot. Kyoutani could see the strength in his shoulders, the sure step of his legs, but under the silhouette of the moonlight and the streetlamps, Tsukishima's hands were shaking too.

•

He laughed, god, he laughed like a hurricane. His lips were curved, hair tucked back behind his ears, freckles moving with his cheeks.

Kyoutani wanted to know the pattern behind his eyes, he wanted to know what could steal the breath from his lungs, he wanted to kiss each bit of skin until it was warm.

"I'm Yamaguchi Tadashi," he'd said, cheeks just barely pink and hand warm as it closed around Kyou's.

"Kyoutani Kentarou," he'd nodded back, voice low and rough and clipped and shaking. He shook Yamaguchi's hand, fingertips touching fingertips and palms tight.

Yamaguchi looked at him once, looked at him twice, head tilted to the side lightly. He brought a hand up to tap at his lips, a habit that Kyoutani would later find out that he did often.

"I think it's quite possible that I could fall in love here," he'd laughed. 

Kyoutani's breath stopped in his throat, climbing steadily through his chest.

 _Me too_ , he thought, hand tightening around Yamaguchi's.

 _Me too_.

•

It had been three days before Kyoutani's birthday. 

That's seventy-two hours, or four thousand thirty-two minutes, or two hundred fifty-nine thousand two-hundred seconds. It's a couple thousand heartbeats.

They'd been on the couch, Kyoutani's back to the couch and face towards Yamaguchi, who was between his arms and legs and eyes. Their lips were tangled, gentle slides of tongues and soft bites, parting for air and only air just to lean back in and kiss until their lips were buzzing. 

Yamaguchi pulled away, a small smile on his warm lips as he sat up. His feet touched the ground, his legs carrying him up and away towards the door, sweater over fingertips as he started searching for shoes.

"Where are you going?" 

Yamaguchi had turned to wink, turned to hold up a hand as he fumbled for keys, "I just had the perfect idea for your present while we were kissing. It's a really bad time to come up with it, I know, but I need to get it now before I forget."

"Tadashi, I told you, you don't even need to-"

"Ah, I know. I don't need to. But I  _want_ to. I'll be back soon, don't worry."

 

 

He didn't come back.

•

"Yamaguchi Tadashi, age twenty-two, found in a car crash on the side of the road. Collision with a drunk driver, fatal abrasions across the body. Dead on arrival."

A crash of the plate he was carrying, the drop to his knees, bones splintering from the inside out. He remembered the sound of quiet shouts, of deathly loud whispers, of the ways his eyes were screaming and his body was rapidly sinking. Yamaguchi was imprinted on him, imprinted from the calloused hands and the fingertips pressed against cheeks and the gentle tsunami of his kisses.

Kyoutani closed his eyes and heard his laugh.

•

"I know it's over but I think the stars still shine for you," Kyoutani said softly, fingers locking with each other.

"You used to always try to connect the dots with them, like you could make your own constellations."

He laughed now, soft and sharp in the wind, tears falling hard.

"The leaves still fall just for you too. You loved the autumn. The smell of the everything and the color orange everywhere and-" his voice broke, hand coming up to grip at his throat, "I remember one time when I tucked a leaf behind your ear and it made you so happy."

Kyoutani swallowed hard, eyes closed around tears as he bent down to pick up a leaf.

"I remember everything about you," he said softly, moonlight taking his words and folding them, tucking them just around Yamaguchi's headstone.

"I remember the first time I saw you serve in high school." He laughed again, this time quietly, tightly in his chest.

"You were so scared and shaky and I think just about everyone on my side expected absolutely nothing. But then you hit it, and we dove for it, and it was a disaster. Amazing, Tadashi. That's all you've ever been."

Kyoutani dropped the leaf, watching it spiral and flutter in a dance to the grass.

"Just amazing."

He breathed hard, letting the air drift out his nose, pushing from his lungs. He kept his eyes closed, bit down on his lip once, twice, and felt a tear slip around his eyelashes.

Hands splayed in the grass and gripping the ground, he still hears Yamaguchi's laugh, and it sounds so far away.


End file.
